Borg Queen
The Borg Queen was an entity that existed, and served as a central nexus, within in the Borg Collective. History The origin of the Queen's existence was, and still is, unclear. It could be that she was created by the Borg Collective to serve as a representative. - Like when Jean-Luc Picard was assimilated and chosen to speak for them in order to facilitate their introduction into human like cultures, but this is purely speculation. Fact was that she had full control over the Borg Collective and was able to command every Borg drone throughout it. To disconnect a drone from the Hive mind or destroy a Borg vessel was nothing more than a thought. The whole might of the Borg Collective was at her disposal. When a drone was disconnected from the Hive mind and Borg Collective the Queen was still able to contact it when the drone in question was regenerating in a Borg alcove. Disconnected drones were not aware of the existence of a Borg Queen. It is unknown when a Borg Queen first appeared within the Borg Collective but she was already present in 2354. A Borg Queen defined herself as, "I am the beginning... the end. The one who is many. I am the Borg." Although this might suggest she would be an individual within the Collective, when spoken to she would refer to drones as "My drones", she is not. The purpose of a Borg Queen was to bring order to chaos. Her appearance was that of a humanoid female of Species 125. In accordance with the Borg strive for perfection, defined by them as a blending of the organic and synthetic, very little of her original humanoid form remained. Her face and upper torso where organic while the rest of her body, including her skull and spinal cord, were synthetic. Because of her disembodiment she saw herself as the epitome of perfection. The Queen had her own chambers within the Borg Unicomplex from were she could oversee the Borg. Whether she had her own ship or not was unknown, but she used different Borg vessels to travel like a Borg diamond or Sphere. When her physical presence was not necessary her organic part resided above this chamber while her synthetic parts were stored below it, under the floor. If she desired to do so both could be brought together and in doing so create a humanoid form for herself. In human terms a Borg Queen could be characterized as ruthless. She would do anything to protect the Borg Collective. Where Borg drones showed no emotions the Queen herself did. When necessary she would employ physicological tactics, like extortion or plain intimidation to get what she wanted. The Queen even displayed selfpreservation when she was held at gunpoint by Captain Janeway who threatened to kill her. On a personal level she considered Seven of Nine her favorite drone, because the Queen condsidered her unique. This had to do with Seven's experiences as an individual when she served aboard Voyager. The Queen's goal was to re-assimilate Seven into the Collective to enhance the Borg's, and so her, perfection. She failed to do so. (VOY:"Unimatrix Zero, Part I;Dark Frontier") The death of a Borg Queen does not seemed to affect the Borg Collective nor its Hive mind. When a Borg drone died its memories would still be within the Hive mind. There was no evidence that a Borg Queen would be more than a drone. Borg drones were capable of functioning without a Queen for any length of time by forming a Hive mind of their own. (VOY:"Unity") It was thought by Federation exobiologist Erin Hansen that the Borg Queen functioned like the queen of an insect hive, to coordinate the drones, but there was no evidence of this kind of behaviour. First encounter The existence of a Borg Queen was first established in 2373 when the Federation starship [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)|USS Enterprise-E]] prevented the assimilation of Earth. This would be the second attempt by the Borg, also known as the Battle of Sector 001. They traveled back to Earth's past to prevent First Contact and by doing so would be able to assimilate Earth. During this conflict, while Captain Picard was trying to destroy the Borg, she claimed to have been present during the Battle of Wolf 359, she even admitted that Locutus of Borg - the assimilated Captain Picard - should have been her counterpart. Whether or not she took physically part in this battle is unknown. The Borg Queen was killed by the android Lieutenant Commander Data while she tried to persuade him to gave her the encryption key by which he had locked the Enterprise computer. Warp core plasma coolant destroyed her organic parts where after her spinal cord was broken to make sure she did not functioned anymore. (Star Trek: First Contact) Subsequent encounters The second encounter with a Borg Queen was in 2375 in the Delta Quadrant. Here the lost Federation starship [[USS Voyager|USS Voyager]] tried to rescue the former Borg drone Seven of Nine, who was now part of Voyager''s crew, when the plan to steel a transwarp coil from a Borg cube went not as planned. The Queen also revealed that the drone Seven of Nine was not really freed by ''Voyager from the Borg Collective, but allowed to leave by the Borg. During this encounter the Borg Queen hoped to assimilate Seven of Nine again, who experienced life as an individual for two years, and so add to her own perfection. (VOY: "Dark Frontier") In 2376 the Borg Queen again was encountered by Voyager. This time the Queen wanted to destroy Unimatrix Zero, a virtual world populated by regenerating Borg with a genetic mutation. This world was discovered by Seven of Nine and posed a threat to the Borg. During Voyager''s efforts to rescue this virtual world the Borg Queen demonstrated her powers by destroying a Borg Sphere because she could no longer 'hear' three drones. When a nanovirus was released to prevent the detection of the Unimatrix Borg. The Queen destroyed several Borg vessels, killing 75.000 Borg drones in the process, in the hope to persuade the captured Captain Janeway to give her the antidote. (VOY:"Unimatrix Zero, Part I;Unimatrix Zero, Part II") The last encounter between a Federation starship and a Borg Queen was in 2378, again ''Voyager played a part in it. Voyager accidentally discovered a Borg transwarp hub within a nebula and were helped by Admiral Kathryn Janeway, who came from an alternate timeline, to use the Borg transwarp network to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. Because the Borg guarded their transwarp hub closely Admiral Janeway devised a plan by which she would infect the Borg Queen with a neurolytic pathogen and in doing so making her loose control over the force fields who protected the interspatial manifolds. When the Admiral was captured by the Borg, near the Unicomplex, she was assimilated by the Borg Queen herself. Soon after the Queen began to loose control over drones. The pathogen even made her loosing control over her own synthetic parts. Her body literally fell apart. Her death caused the destruction of the Unicomplex and despite her efforts Voyager reached Earth safely. The Borg Sphere send after them by the Queen was destroyed by Voyager''s transphasic torpedos. (VOY: "Endgame") It was unknown if the neurolytic pathogen infected Borg drones who were not in the Unicomplex at the time. The current status of the Borg and whether or not a new Borg Queen is in place, is unknown. Appearances * Star Trek: First Contact * VOY: ** "Dark Frontier" ** "Unimatrix Zero, Part I" ** "Unimatrix Zero, Part II" ** "Endgame" Background Information The Borg Queen was played by actress Alice Krige in ''Star Trek: First Contact and "Endgame" (VOY). The character was played by actress Susanna Thompson in the Voyager episodes "Dark Frontier", "Unimatrix Zero, Part I", and "Unimatrix Zero, Part II". The appearance of the Borg Queen in "First Contact" was a controversial one in the Trek universe. Though the Borg provided for a threatening and intriguing alien enemy, their lack of a single villain presented a challenge for the writers. To counter this, and to expand some on Gene Roddenberry's original notion of the Borg as an insect-hive type of race, they created the Queen as a focal point for their story. However, many fans felt that her very existence undermined the idea of the Borg as a Collective, or Hive Mind, and that the dialogue meant to address this in the movie was inadequate in addition to being intentionally vague. Consequently many different theories have developed over the role of the Queen and the extent to which she may represent a hierarchical structure in the previously supposed to be Collective nature of the Borg. The exact nature of the Queen is still hotly debated and has many possible explanations. In "First Contact", when asked by Picard how she'd survived when the cube sent to Earth in 2367 was destroyed, the Queen replied that Picard had become small, thinking in three-dimensional terms. If this was meant to imply she'd escaped somehow, or if she was a different Queen with the same memories as the one on that cube, is not clear. This was further complicated by the re-appearance of a Queen during the run of Voyager but was not directly addressed. de:Borg-Königin nl:Borg koningin Category:Nonhumans